Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) 東國李相國集 · Yi Gyubo · Compiled 1241 (Goryeo, 28th year of King Gojong); revised and enlarged 1251 · 2 passages · 112 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 18 The collected writings of Yi Gyubo of Goryeo, gathered and cut in woodblock by his son Yi Ham in 1241 and revised and enlarged by his grandson Yi Ikbae in 1251. It holds poems and rhapsodies, memorials and reports sent up to the king, records written for temples and pagodas, stele and tomb inscriptions, letters and prefaces, and the state letters that passed to and from the Mongols during the invasions. The Lay of King Dongmyeong, which sings the founder of Goguryeo, stands in volume 3 of the first collection, and the daily life of a man who called himself the White Cloud Layman — with his wine, his zither and his verse — fills the later collection. The book closes with the last poem he wrote as his eyes failed and he laid down the brush, and with the dirge and tomb inscription others made for him after his death.
Arm in arm we roamed together for forty years,
and as distant kin by marriage we tied a good bond over again.
Choosing to be neighbors we came and went, our closeness beyond compare,
and whenever there was wine we called and pulled each other along.
His rank as Academician was high, and early on he walked as he pleased;
his repute in letters was weighty, and twice he presided over the examination.
Only this is to be regretted: that without having set foot on a Privy Councillor's seat
he went down to the world below bearing a regret without end.
Long bent in the post of wonrang (員郞), he sighed over the piled-up firewood;
then in a single morning the dragon leapt and shook out its long scales.
Only three years after he rose to the rank of minister (卿),
he had already sat and made the peach blossoms of his school bloom for two springs.
His hope of being taken up as the ear of the golden cauldron went awry,
but a rainbow banner led him away to pay court to the True.
His gift and his name fall not behind the worthies who went before,
yet who will take hold of hard stone and carve the labors he spent?
Interlinear notes 2
拜三品。三年間再掌試。
Appointed to the third rank, he presided over the examination twice in three years.
葬速無墓誌。
The burial was held quickly, so there is no tomb inscription (墓誌).